Some Songs Considered

“No Backbone” – The Lemonheads
(Words/music: Evan Dando and Tom Morgan, available on The Lemonheads, Vagrant 2006) 

For a while, Evan Dando slipped out of the spotlight.  When he brought back his Lemonheads moniker roughly a decade after their last record, Dando came out swinging.  He borrowed the rhythm section from punk legends The Descendents and tore through a collection of songs that seemed to reclaim the “pop punk” label from the mall punk popular during that time.  These songs worked well because they leaned on Dando’s strengths, particularly his gift for melody and his relaxed voice.  However, these tunes benefited almost as much from the Descendents’ paunchiness, giving Dando’s songs a snappiness that highlighted their melodies. 

For all its strengths, though, J Mascis’ guitar dominates “No Backbone.”  From the second Mascis puts pick to string, his nimble lead guitar takes center stage.  Even when it plays a supporting role to Dando’s vocals, Mascis’ fills seem to spur on the rest of the band.  Even without a punchy rhythm section supporting his songs, “No Backbone” would hold up with the rest of Dando’s upbeat compositions.  By adding Mascis to the mix, Dando ensures that his comeback set hit all the right notes.  Even if Dando had an eager audience willing to give any new batch of songs a try, it sounds like he wasn’t taking any chances with anything less than full speed ahead. 

More on The Lemonheads: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Suburban Home” – The Descendents
(Words/music: Tommy Lombardo, available on Milo Goes to College, SST 1982)

For me, the key line in the Descendents’ “Suburban Home” is the one where  Milo Aukerman sings “I wanna be masochistic.”  It’s too self-aware to suggest that “Suburban Home” is anything but tongue-in-cheek for anyone who doesn’t pick up the sarcasm from the opening “I wanna be stereotyped / I wanna be classified” line.  Ultimately, this is the suburban dilemma – assimilate into the white picket fence lifestyle or resist and stand out from your neighbors.  On an oversimplified level, it’s comfort versus individuality, and this struggle is the one that the Descendents thrash against.

Subtlety isn’t one of the Descendents’ strong points, but “Suburban Home” stomps for most of its 1:43 seconds.  The opening and closing spoken word reciting of the opening couplet helps to reinforce the song’s main point – the assimilation that suburbia thrusts upon many – and in the middle turns it into one big slamdance.  Ironically, the Descendents did anything but fade into suburbia; vocalist Milo Aukerman earned a PhD in biochemistry in between stints fronting the band.  While punk rock (in some ways) fell into blandness in the early part of this decade, the Descendents’ thrash went against the grain in 1982.

More on The Descendents: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm